London has been battered by 50mph winds that have felled trees and caused travel chaos. Powerful gusts swept across the capital as the Met Office issued a yellow "be aware" weather alert for most of the country.

When young, I attended a theological college, with the hope of becoming a clergyman. It was an amusing surprise to discover that, of the 40 or so students, 30 had adopted female “names in religion”.

I did not stay the course, but I have since watched “Tawdry Audrey”, “Plum Tart”, “Clarissa” , “Maud” and the others go on to become faithful priests, nearly all of them living dedicated lives of service to God in insalubrious neighbourhoods.

While I was doing my training, the Church of England still possessed the blessed English gift of irony. Double-think. Some would call it hypocrisy but I would not. Most of these priests were, or became, celibates. Some shared their clergy-houses with another chap, and if his bishop had any sense, no questions were asked.

The Church of England has now decided that gay men in civil partnerships can become bishops, so long as they remain celibate. It seems a bizarre requirement. Most of us would have assumed that celibate men had never been barred from the clergy — whatever their emotional preferences. By bringing in this ruling, the Church is obviously trying to please gay people — or at least to please potential gay bishops.

But the insistence that a pair within a civil partnership should be celibate will strike many people as sheer impertinence. If a married man is chosen as a bishop, the Church does not ask when he and his wife last had carnal relations. Why raise the question at all?

When institutions are in terminal decline, almost everything they do turns out to be wrong. John Major’s government was like this in its last year — whatever it decided about Europe or the economy did it yet more damage. The Church appears to be in comparable freefall, and its preoccupation with gay sex is only one of the many things about it which seem ridiculous.

Imitating the American wave of gay liberation, the Church of England decided to come out. It was a disastrous mistake. Of course, if you ask the question simply — does the teaching of the Church allow promiscuity, gay or straight? The answer must be no. The New Testament makes it perfectly clear that Christians are called either to monogamous, heterosexual marriage or to celibacy. There are no two ways about it.

There are certain questions institutions should learn not to ask. In the Conservative Party, that question is whether we should or should not belong to the European Union. In the Church, the gay question was best and safest kept in its box. Now that Pandora’s box has flown open, nothing but discord has followed.

Perhaps the Church could learn a lesson from the hunting folk. Since the ban on hunting with hounds, very little has actually altered. Everyone acknowledges that the activity in question is forbidden, but in most cases the police turn a blind eye. Many hunting people actually enjoy the chase all the more since it was banned, just as drinking in the afternoon was only fun before they liberalised the licensing laws.

If only the General Synod, and the senior clergy of the Church of England could learn the English lesson that in this, as in so many other areas of life, least said is soonest mended.